INEM's new regional headquarters is being built for CODU's return to the Algarve

«We started dreaming, then planning, and here we are today to start the work»

Photos: Rúben Bento | Sul Informação

The Guidance Center for Urgent Patients (CODU) will return to the Algarve, being installed in the new headquarters regional office of the INEM (National Institute of Medical Emergency), whose first stone was laid this Thursday, May 27, in Loulé. This is a work that costs around 1,8 million euros and should be completed in 2023.

The act of consignment of the work and the laying of the first stone took place this Thursday, on a plot of land in front of the Loulé Cemetery and next to the Fire Station.

This new building "will be the headquarters of the future regional delegation of INEM and will have all the inherent services, such as coordination, the Guidance Center for Urgent Patients (CODU), training structures, logistical part", he told journalists , Carlos Raposo, responsible for the Institute of Medical Emergency in the Algarve.

 

 

Photos: Rúben Bento | Sul Informação

 

The return of CODU is really one of the great news. After the closure of its regional delegation in the Algarve, in 2012, at the time of the intervention of the troika, and the transfer of the valences to Lisbon, the region will have this center again, this time in Loulé.

«Right now, we are an extension of CODU Lisboa. There are features that are not present in the region and what we want is to provide CODU Algarve with all these features. There has been a progressive resumption of skills and we hope that, with the revision of the statutes and the creation of the Algarve regional delegation, it will return in full», explained Carlos Raposo.

Thus, the new INEM building will also house the Emergency Call Answering Center and the CODU Support Office.

 

Photos: Rúben Bento | Sul Informação

 

As for the space chosen for the construction, it was not by chance either, as it will be located just outside the city of Loulé, next to the A22 junction, in a «privileged area, with good access, close to Via do Infante and which can serve Windward and Leeward».

Among the various services that the building will host are a Training Centre, a Regional Coordination Office and a Nursing Coordination Office. The facilities will also have a data center, dormitories, cafeteria and changing rooms.

According to Carlos Raposo, «the current facilities of INEM, in the Supply Market of the Region of Faro (MARF), are becoming too small for the amount of activity we have and which is expected to increase. So we were in need of new facilities».

And it was even the need that made INEM, from whom the idea came, contact the Câmara de Loulé, entity that then decided to proceed with the construction of a building from scratch.

 

Photos: Rúben Bento | Sul Informação

 

To the journalists, Vítor Aleixo, president of this municipality, expressed his joy at the fact that this new area was installed in the city.

“We started dreaming, then planning, and here we are today to start the work”, said the mayor.

This is, moreover, another step towards the establishment of the “Citadel of health and safety”, which is being born outside Loulé, as the headquarters of the Algarve Civil Protection, the Fire Department and the Heliport. In the future, it will also be there that the new headquarters of the Territorial Command of Faro of the GNR.

These are, for Vítor Aleixo, "modern, regional services, and whose greatest beneficiaries will be the Algarve."

José Apolinário, president of the Algarve's Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR), who was also present at the ceremony, considered that «investment in the area of ​​health is structuring and central to the region», and congratulated «the municipality of Loulé for more this work».

 

Photos: Rúben Bento | Sul Informação

 



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